New KXL application sound familiar?

TransCanada's reapplication Friday for its proposed Keystone XL pipeline underscores how little has changed in a review process that has already gone on since 2008.

Story Continued Below

The company’s new application for a presidential permit at first glance appears to offer little information beyond what has already been publicly vetted since the company filed its initial permit application more than three years ago.

And that is more or less the point.

The application references a State Department environmental review, finished in August, that said the pipeline project would have only a minimal effect on the environment.

"The only reason they were denying a permit was the lack of a route in Nebraska," TransCanada pipelines chief Alex Pourbaix said in a phone interview Friday.

The pipeline also still has support from the same Republicans on Capitol Hill who say President Barack Obama is the only person blocking the project and the jobs it could create.

"Today there is just one person standing in the way of tens of thousands of new American jobs: President Obama," House Speaker John Boehner said Friday.

"When it comes to delays over Keystone, anyone looking for a culprit should look no further than the Oval Office," Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell echoed.

House Republican language that would authorize quick approval of the pipeline segments outside Nebraska is about to be up for debate in House-Senate debate on a major transportation bill. The White House has threatened to veto that language.

On the other hand, pipeline backers still need to find a new route inside Nebraska that would avoid the state's environmentally sensitive Sandhills region. The lack of a new route in Nebraska is the reason Obama cited when he denied a permit for the project in January.

And the project still faces opposition from the same critics who say that TransCanada's jobs estimates are inflated and that tapping Alberta's oil sands would ratchet up greenhouse gas emissions and imperil the Earth's climate.